Bird. Bird. Bird. Bird is the Word

Hello, I am Nellie, I am the turquoise owl holding the little Polaroid camera. You can usually find me over at This Little Blog of Mine.

Our blog header is just lovely isn't it? (Thanks Katja!!)

I am so excited to be a contributor for this gorgeous blog. We have some seriously talented ladies on board to post something lovely for you every day of the week--how awesome is that?

And, it all started with one tweet. That's right. One tweet and here we go!!

Do you have like a zillion pictures sitting in boxes from trips or special occasions? Over the next few weeks {each Monday} I will share with you my techniques for capturing the essence of a special vacation, or other event, so that you can get those photos out of the boxes (or off the hard drive) and into some sort of form that will allow you to share them with others. You might be getting ready to start a big project of your own in the form of spring cleaning....so I hope this will inspire you!

Call it scrapbooking, call it whatever you want....saving photos and ephemera and capturing the story of a trip or special time in your life is just plain cool--and it can be really beautiful. If you have ever been overwhelmed by the idea of all the 'stuff' that goes along with scrapbooking, don't be freaked out by this post. You might {as I am hoping} get inspired to join me on the important task of telling your stories. Starting with one trip, I am going to do my best to create something really special using my pictures!! I love this process, I hope you will enjoy it too!

Last week, I traveled with friends to the fabulous city of Las Vegas--and I took all of my crafting budget with me. This is the first time in a REALLY, REALLY long time that I did not buy ANY scrapbooking or crafting supplies in a month. NONE!


And as a result I am feeling a little uninspired but at the same time, I want to get all of my photos printed so I can just play, play, play. I love to create mini-books and albums with trip ephemera and photos.

I took some time yesterday to edit my photos (Ohgosh-I have almost 500 pictures) and I am still in the process of uploading them to snapfish. The editing process for me is just a matter of some basic cropping, adjusting the white balance, adjusting the contrast, flipping to vertical or converting to black and white. I try to modify the image so that it will look good whenever it is printed.

I created some folders on my desktop labeled "Favorite Baby Jacob Pictures" and "Favorites from Las Vegas Day 1". (No, I did not take a baby to Vegas--I stayed a few extra days in Lake Havasu, AZ to visit my sweet baby nephew--my favorite part of the trip!)

(Yes, there is a story with this picture. I can't wait to tell it!)

By creating folders on my desk top, I can more easily wade through and pare down all those random pictures of cool signs, graffiti, trash, sunsets, random strangers or whatever else may have squeaked its way from the memory stick of my camera onto my hard drive.





Sometimes I save those random shots in iPhoto...but I don't upload them ALL to be printed...but I also don't want to delete them...I am a photo hoarder. How many photos do I have in iPhoto? Well....I got this computer in May 2009....and I have 9,869. Today. There will be more tomorrow from a variety of digital cameras, my iPhone and possibly even photos that I scan in...like the Instax pictures from the trip! (That doesn't even include all the photos I have in other folders that I use for inspiration, school projects and other stuff!)

(This one has a sweet story too! Suggestions for captions, anyone??)

So in order to keep from having twenty zillion photos printed and gathering dust, I will have a some printed as collages. I will also add some text in the form of journaling and titles to some of the individual photos. I will use my favorites on scrapbook pages or in a mini-book. I will give some away and I might even frame a few. By organizing my favorites on my desktop into photos, I have exported a smaller copy of the photos out of iPhoto which is easier to upload to Facebook, Picnik, and my blog.

(Hi from the GhostBar on top of the Palms!)

I work full time so I can't devote more than an hour or so a day to this project....maybe less than that some days....or more on the weekends. I also like to make cards, watch t.v. (like Lost, Grey's Anatomy, American Idol, and a whole host of other reality t.v.) so I don't want this project to consume my life...but it is important to me.

(Hi from the top of the Stratosphere!)

My goal this week is to create the digital photo collages and add text to some of the photos. I am not a PhotoShop guru....I primarily use Picnik for adding text and other things. I hope to have a large batch printed by next week. And then the fun begins. I will share some of the collages with you next week, and then I will hopefully make some progress as I share a mini-album or a scrapbook layout or two in April once the photos are printed.

I hope you will check back each Monday for this series. I need the moral support to keep this daunting task alive, otherwise I will be just like you with all my photos in a box (or on my hard drive!) Also, I promise my next post won't have so many pictures of me---creeper alert--ha!

Have a great week--I hope it looks like spring wherever you are!

To be continued....